The appeal court of the Supreme People’s Court on Tuesday gave a death sentence to Ngo Quang Truong, the director of a Ho Chi Minh City-based company, for being the mastermind behind the murder of his deputy, Dang Xuan Sy, in 2009. In the earlier trial in 2011, Truong, director of the Hoang Hai Housing Investment and Trading Joint Stock Company, was sentenced to life by the HCMC People’s Court for hiring gangsters to kill Sy for exposing his fraudulent land deals. After that trial, Sy’s family appealed the court’s judgment, asking for a heavier penalty for Truong, but at the appeal hearing the sentence was maintained. Sy’s family continued to appeal, and the Chief Justice of the Supreme People’s Court, Truong Hoa Binh, in April this year ordered a new trial for Truong, suggesting a death penalty for him. Meanwhile, Truong also appealed for a lighter sentence. At yesterday’s trial, Truong, who was taken to the court in a wheelchair because of his poor health condition, told the court that he did not intend to kill Sy, but only hired others to beat him as a warning. Sy’s death was not expected, Truong said. He also told the Court that he was suffering from many serious diseases that need to be treated. The court rejected Truong’s arguments, as well as his lawyer Phan Trung Hoai’s request for others to be summoned to court as witnesses. The court maintained that the testimonies and evidence collected were enough to charge Truong with murder as an instigator. According to the case file, Truong hired Vu Van Luan, a notorious gangster from the northern port city of Hai Phong, to “teach Sy a lesson” in October 2009.  Luan later ordered six subordinates to follow Sy and stabbed him while he was driving a motorbike on Hai Ba Trung Street on October 15, 2009. Sy died on the way to the hospital. Truong, Luan and his accomplices were arrested soon afterward. In September 2011, the HCMC People’s Court sentenced Luan to death, while giving a life sentence to Truong and sentences between two and a half and 20 years in jail to the other defendants in the case.